Thanks for listening to the Aspastur John Podcast with a long time pastor and author John

Piper.

Today's question comes from an anonymous man.

Pastor John, I heard the episode about caring for aging parents.

That was episode 1078 and we published that back on August 9th of this year.

It's titled Retirement Homes and Caring for Aging Parents.

Back to the question.

In that episode, you got me thinking about my job.

I work in a nursing home and see our elders in a way many of us fear becoming.

Could you speak to the dignity of people in nursing homes with diseases such as dementia?

This seems to me to be perhaps even more foundational under the answers about caring

for aging parents.

Would you say that's right?

Right, that's absolutely right.

The God-given dignity of every human being has created in God's image and destined

for final accountability before the living God.

Unlike all the other creatures, that dignity is foundational to our thinking about how

families or caregivers care for aging parents or for that matter, for any person whose

mental capacities are diminished for whatever reason.

So let me just share a few foundational and application thoughts about the dignity of

those with diminished powers of thought and self-awareness.

First, we can hardly be reminded too often or too deeply of the staggering truth of

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